While the addictive alchemy formulas that sit at the heart of the gameplay have been held over for a repeat performance, everything else has been hit hard by an obnoxious spoiled brat of a title character, a repetitive plot loaded with never-ending tedious dialogue, and so many creepy moments with the short-skirted kiddie characters that you feel like you’re committing a crime just looking at the TV screen.

[…]

The setting is overloaded with anime-style cutesiness. There are more pastel colors and glowing stars here than in the average 8-year-old girl’s dream bedroom. The entire game sparkles like a Twilight vampire.

Costumes are taken to extremes with super-short skirts and corsets that it makes playing the game somewhat cringe-worthy.

[…]

But it is impossible to enjoy the game as a complete experience because you see everything through the eyes of one of the most vapid gaming protagonists ever created, and do all of your adventuring in a world so sickeningly sweet that you should get screened for adult-onset diabetes the moment you put down the gamepad.

Whilst Gamespot’s reviews are already rather famous for having all the fairness of an AKB48 popularity contest, amongst anime-loving gamers they and various other US reviewers have rapidly garnering a reputation for treating any game boasting moe visuals as an tantamount to virtual child pornography – the most famous example being their views on Neptunia.

The game did rather better on Metacritic, the gamer’s moral guardians at Gamespot being in a distinct minority:

Believe it or not, the majority of the population doesn't care, especially when it comes to fake shit. Unfortunately the ones that do have a problem with things are the same ones that like to yell/plaster their moronic opinions in places where people will see them.

Actually, the majority of the population doesn't care even when it is a real kid being sexed. I've talked with a LOT of people and most of them had sex with adults as children and admit (when they aren't in earshot of the P.O.) that they wouldn't be flussed if their children had sex with adults as well.

It's only a VERY small group of radical feminists and radical religious people who are bashing on pedosexuals on a daily basis, along with some people who are too lacking in cajones to tell those people where to stick it even though they don't agree with those radical feminists/radical religious.

" I've talked with a LOT of people and most of them had sex with adults as children and admit (when they aren't in earshot of the P.O.) that they wouldn't be flussed if their children had sex with adults as well."

You must live in a Very liberal country! If any adult had sex with a child in most places in my country you'd be lucky to escape with your life if discovered.
I mean you would be torn limb from limb and left in the street for the dogs.

I work at a hospital in EVS (aka janitor of sorts) and all last month and this month, I remember seeing three little White girls wearing SHORT ASS shorts. It was kinda making me say "no... No... NO!!!" to my devil on my shoulder. Still say fucked up. And then you have older teenagers who got tramp stamps and showing cleavage and shit. You can't tell how old anybody is, and yet, some still (today) believe the "Don't ask women their ages". Okay, older women I go. Got me feeling guilty all the damn time. I control my libido more when people are in full nude, but when "sticking things out", it's difficult.

Was this reviewer a woman? The wording made it sound like a guy, since ironically it seems to always be 'men' who whine about sexualization of anything female. Meanwhile usually the girls tend to just say 'oh, that's a cute/ugly (insert aesthetic context here)' and be done with it, while guys end up being ridiculous and protesting vocally.

Reclaim your damn manhood and go ahead and get a damn erection if you feel like it for fuck's sake. Don't wrap a protest sign around you to cover it, just give in, fap a bit, clear your mind, and as Joe Rogan puts it, "Now you can invent things!"

Okay I've only ever been to their site 4 or 6 times and that was to look for cheats in GTA SA (cause bubble car is epic)

These idiots fail so hard at being reviewers, what the hell is wrong with a reviewer when instead of rating a game about it's actual pros and cons as a game they just insert their own biased views but personally I'd rather be looking at little girls and hanging posters of them in my wall then brandishing my walls with body builders

Never once have I ever needed a "reviewers" opinion on what I play! Heck I just go to you tube and add "gameplay" to whatever title and see for myself

this.
let's not get into stupid sexist crap. the reality is Gamespot is just a horrible horrible site for critical thought of any sort, and has been for a long time.

Kasavin was the last guy to actually run a good ship around there and that was over 5 years ago already.
once he left, the ship started to sink. it sucks how Gerstmann was treated but frankly the site was already going downhill with under his tenure.
and then after Gerstmann-gate, pretty much every remaining writer worth a damn left the sinking ship.

the current staff of writers is so second rate its actually sort of painful...

I don't know it kinda of double standards. That's how come I tend to ignore online reviews for this purpose.

Lets take an example Mortal Kombat 2011 version they have like about 10 women in there wearing skimpy outfits, oh no that's right they are all adults it's fair but no it's alright cause the game is American.

I take the review on merit if the game is banned but henceforth it's not so bashing the game on little girls is beating a dead horse with a stick. Not alright the game is Japanese.

Well ME3 is a pretty good game cause it's made in America same as Skyrim but those people who actually played these games will take their reviews with a grain of salt. It's like IGN rating MW3 10/10 yea pro site.

See another example is Lollipop chainsaw 1/5 on Quarter to 3? Really so you compared the game to Baynoetta!! Well Panademic is shit cause I compare it to Atom Zombie Smash!!!

Also Brett Todd is an American so that's how come the game is reviewed so shit.

I've recently begun suspecting that there are several women pretending to be men on the internet, for various purposes of influencing popular belief (eg. making men look like assholes). They can then go back to their own identity and whine about being victims to get special benfits or donations.

This may sound "paranoid" but I think it's definitely a possibility. People love playing the victim to get benefits. Not saying all women are like that, of course... but when things like money are at stake, it's logical to expect the worst in people.

Seriously, the only ones with "unhealthy" interests are the ones sexualizing whatever to begin with. I mean if you're seeing them in that way...You really aren't in any position to preach to others. People that strongly oppose something for moralistic values are usually the ones that are more inclined to have an interest in and actually act out. We call that denial. By gods if cute, puffy, frilly outfits that are designed well are called to be sexualized to these people....how on earth do they react at a fucking beach?

When a "game reviewer" is focusing more on the characters design....no a characters outfit make that, instead of the gameplay, mechanics, fluidity and so forth. You ain't no "game reviewer".

I think it's less about the outfits and more about the character. Kat must be one of those women who can only accept women being 'strong', 'independant' and all that new age, feminist bullshit like many other empowerment crazy Western women.

Even in real life, there are all kinds of women. Yet this game gets flak?

And why must so many women who are in videogames industry be so insecure of themselves? Same shit with Jessica Hepler not being able to take criticism for her thinking that games should allow people to skip gameplay for story and instantly branding the critics as 'sexist'. What part of 'videogame' doesn't she understand? Her being an idiot meant that she is literally walking the stereotype they wanna call bullshit. You want story, you read books or watch movies.

This is actually what makes me so surprised at the outright hate some people are giving to the new Tomb Raider reset. As soon as they suggested the Lara wasn't born as the indestructible back-flipping tiger killing monster that she's portrayed as in the previous games, and that she might just be weak enough for a violent much larger guy (I'm assuming soldier from a drug cartel or something since he doesn't seem to be an island savage) to potentially rape her, the internet suddenly went "What the fuck are you doing!" and did a 180 on opinion of the game.

The reality is though, that 99.9% of females graduating college probably would be in the exact same situation they're putting her in, if they even managed to overcome being stabbed in the abdomen by a metal spike. While yes, it's twisted and fucked up that rape is a possibility, I find it more realistic, and more "empowering" that she manages to escape, overcome her current helplessness, and END UP strong than than to be born as a tank and never encounter the issues that an actual women might encounter in the face of such an unfair and vicious scenario.

It's an unfortunate and unfair standard that everyone in games needs to be super soldiers these days or suddenly it's a political gender issue. Some people are weak with the potential to be strong, and some people just break under pressure. If you're aiming for a game more grounded in reality those archetypes should be present occasionally.

To be honest, I never liked Lara Croft before. Her depiction as a badass packing boobs the same size as her head never really clicked to me.

The new Tomb Raider though really made me wanna play the game, simply because she seemed very human to me, as shown in the trailer. Sure she'd still be forced to pull a few flips every now and then, but her new personality is just... believable.

About claims of sexism and all that shit, those fuckers are more than a decade late to the party. Where were they during the first 3 TR games when Lara's body figure was still clearly made to sexually please with dat ghetto ass and balloon boobs?

Feminist are stupid in general. Let me just say first off i'm a chick and I view nothing wrong about the female body.

The problem with feminist is that their literally comparing the image of women themselves to pixels and pictures. Their actually insecure of their own selfs (either their fat, ugly, or just plain baggage rl) so they take their frustrations out on the gaming world.

To them, putting masculine-looking clothes on pixel chicks or putting everyone in muslim-wear attire is "conquering" the big, bad game industry world and creating "equality".

Doesn't do shit but force their view down on how games should be and THIS is how everyone should play because they say so.

They're too busy drooling at the local high school girl crowd to make comments about the way they dress. Thus when they review games, their activities summon up a wealth of guilt that they take out on anime games. This way no one suspects that they're probably eyeing every girls of teen years that they see .